Zoe whacked the falling sloth in the chest.

While she had grown much faster since her death on Earth, her reaction speed still wasn’t anything special. Fortunately, gravity was rather slow at such a short height, and unlike Andric, the monster couldn’t exactly dodge.

The {Corrupted Strike} she had prepared exceeded her expectations. The sloth flew backwards with a spray of blood and gore, landing limply half a dozen meters away. It was probably dead before it hit the ground.

{Corrupted Strike has leveled up! Corrupted Strike is now level 2.}

It also had splattered Zoe with a fair amount of blood and guts — blood and guts which were now churning and turning black. Zoe flicked as much as she could off herself with mild disgust. At least it probably can’t hurt me anymore. A small compensation for being transformed into a horrifying monstrosity.

The level up was also nice. Zoe wondered how powerful the ability really was and how much it would improve. After all, the monster had died pretty much instantly. Was it powerful enough to also instantly kill stronger creatures? There was no way to tell from just the one attack.

So she would do her best to find out.

Flying upwards with the help of {Kinetic Dash}, Zoe just managed to grab onto the thickest of the low lying branches. The ability was now able to carry her exactly six meters, giving her just enough height to grab on and then swing herself up. Landing on the top of the branch, she gripped it hard with her talons to stabilize herself.

There were two sloths on either side of her.

They died just as quickly to a lashing swipe of her bladed tail. Without really thinking, Zoe had also activated {Kinetic Enhancement}. In conjunction with the tremendous strength she now possessed — as well as the hardness and sharpness of her exoskeleton — it was more than enough force to completely shatter the bones of both monsters.

A third sloth dropped down, clumsily attempting to swipe at her with its own pitiful claws. While they were much longer than those of a cat or dog, they looked downright pathetic compared to Zoe’s own vicious natural weapons.

Striking out with her own claws this time, Zoe channeled {Corrupted Strike} again. Unfortunately, she just barely misjudged the distance, and her claws just barely didn’t connect.

The sloth still exploded nevertheless.

Blood and gore erupted from its chest, and it keeled over to fall down into the green abyss below. Zoe was so surprised that she remained motionless for a moment, completely ignoring the two sloths that were scratching and biting at her backside.

She knew that her old {Kinetic Strike} extended from her attacks — after all, she had used that trick all the way back in the cultist ritual chamber to kill the wind dancer woman. She just didn’t count on it much after that, mostly using it to power ordinary strikes.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

The fact that the new, corrupted version behaved similarly shouldn’t have come as such a surprise, but it did nonetheless. In any case, Zoe resolved to keep it in mind and make use of it. She should probably train her abilities with more intent, thinking critically about how they could most effectively be applied.

Her spars with Andric had gone a long way towards teaching her those kinds of lessons, but it was only for an hour or so and was really just the beginning.

Finally getting irritated by the two nuisances feebly attempting to kill her from behind, Zoe lashed her tail again. It was empowered by {Corrupted Strike} this time. Craning her head back just in time, Zoe watched as it cleaved through the first and grazed the second as it tried to scramble back.

The second one instantly died anyway.

Looking around, Zoe saw that the rest of the tens of sloths were watching warily from the perimeter. Setting her sights on one neighboring branch, Zoe leapt over with {Kinetic Dash} and crushed all three sloths before they could even react.

Looking back at the rest of them, she realized that they were now fleeing.

They weren’t exactly fast, but they certainly weren’t slow either. Zoe wondered if that was because they were spirit beasts or because sloths weren’t actually as slow as she thought. She had never seen one at a Zoo, and she couldn’t remember a video of one, only pictures. She would still bet on it being that they were magic sloths, though.

For a moment, Zoe wanted to give chase. But she stopped herself. Getting to the airship wreck was more important — after all, the longer she took, the more likely that any survivors died, escaped, or prepared to fight. Zoe definitely wanted to interrogate at least one of them if she could.

Also, the sloths weren’t getting her much. She hadn’t gained any levels — well, aside from {Corrupted Strike}, and she had a feeling that she wouldn’t level it up much more at all just from killing them. They were just too easy.

She could {Devour} one of them and see if it gave her anything useful. But honestly? She just didn’t want to. Not only did she seriously doubt that they would grant her anything, but something about them just grossed her out. Sure, they weren’t disturbing to look at when they were alive, by any means, but she really didn’t want to actually eat one.

You know, that’s honestly really fucking funny given that I’ve eaten multiple humans by now.

Zoe laughed at that thought, and then stopped. The sound she had been making was kind of disturbing. It sounded more like some really fucked up and scary monster crying out in pain rather than laughter.

Good to find that out now, at least. Don’t want to freak people out anymore than I already willl.

The thought of having to interact with people like this made Zoe sad. Sure, it had been a little fun to scare that guy back on the ship — but she didn’t want that most of the time. She did have a close friend back on Earth who would have loved something like this. Zoe knew that she would have been extremely envious of Zoe’s new body.

Unfortunately, overall it just wasn’t Zoe’s style.

But fortunately, the sloths had given her an idea of how to get to the crash site much more quickly. Even with her massively multiplied strength, trudging through the horribly dense undergrowth had been a chore.

But she didn’t have to walk on the ground, did she? The tree branches were strong and fairly regularly spaced. Yes, travelling above ground would be much faster and more efficient.

With that realization made, Zoe dashed to the next tree. Zipping through the air at such incredible speed was exhilarating. Even though she was sad about her social prospects, perhaps she could have a little fun while she was out here in the wilderness.

Just don’t become a friendless hermit. Like some kind of killer hobo.

With that final resolution made, Zoe ran along the branch and jumped to the next tree. Well, don’t become a hobo. The killer part is okay.

After all, if she ended up killing someone, they probably deserved it.